Nation & World News

Search for body to follow Costa Concordia removal

The Associated Press

Posted:
07/13/2014 05:40:49 AM PDT

Updated:
07/13/2014 05:40:50 AM PDT

Click photo to enlarge

FILE -- In this file photo taken on Jan. 23, 2014, the Costa Concordia cruise liner lies in the waters of the Giglio Island, Italy. Italian authorities say work to float the shipwrecked Costa Concordia so it can be towed away for scrapping can start Monday, weather-permitting. (AP Photo/Luigi Navarra)

GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy (AP) — An Italian official has promised that a search will be conducted for the only unrecovered body of the 32 Costa Concordia shipwreck victims as soon as the wrecked cruise liner is towed away from the island where it struck a reef in 2012.

Franco Gabrielli, who heads the Civil Protection Department overseeing the wreck's removal, also told reporters on Giglio Island Sunday that while weather conditions aren't optimal, they are good enough to permit the start of operations to refloat and tow the Concordia to Genoa on the mainland for scrapping.

Gabrielli said it was a "great sorrow" the body of an Indian waiter was never found.

Delicate removal operations will start early Monday and last several days. A daring engineering operation set the capsized Concordia upright last year.